"When you've been in this house as long as I have, you'll have more than an inkling—you'll probably know," returned Cleek with a little laugh. "But, look here, my friend, we've got to get the body out of here—presto!—or we'll be having the ladies fainting away and upsetting the apple cart with a vengeance! They're due in here inside of a quarter of an hour, when I'm going to give a little 'turn' of the whole thing again, and see if we can't reconstruct it a bit. The constable outside will lend a hand. Here, Peters!"
"Yessir?"
"Get your friend from the outside window for a moment and give a hand to get—This—out of the room before the ladies come. I want to reconstruct the whole affair in the presence of all concerned. And we'll take away all the gruesomeness that's possible.... Poor old chap! Poor old tight-fisted laird! Eh, man, but you've got a sterner judge to face now than ever you were yourself! And this time Justice has to be done, and no gainsaying the fact, either!"
The unpleasant task was barely finished before the sound of footsteps and the humming of many voices in the hallway without told those within that the family were reassembling for the "performance." Cleek, with a hasty glance to see that all was right, threw wide the door.
"Come in, come in," he said in a pleasant, friendly voice. "There's nothing now to be seen but that which all may see, Lady Paula, so neither you nor Miss Duggan nor any other member of the party need fear. If you will all kindly take your places exactly as you took them last night, I'd be immensely grateful. At any rate, Mr. Narkom here"—he introduced him to the assembly with a slight bow—"will be able to get some kind of an idea of exactly how things were when the—tragedy happened. Hello! Where's Miss—Miss—er—McCall? Wasn't she a member of the party, too?"
Lady Paula entered the room with a rustling of soft black silk, and came toward him with sadly smiling countenance.
"I hardly thought, you know, that you would require her presence, Mr. Deland, and so I told her she might attend to her duties instead. But of course if you wish——"
"I do wish——"
"Then she shall be immediately sent for. Maud, my dear, will you kindly call her?"
Maud, thus addressed, turned silently away and went out of the room, but in a few moments was back again, the slim, shrinking form of the girl following closely behind her.